1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a digital camera or a digital video camera having a lens element, having a sensor for capturing and digitizing image information and having means for storing the digitized image information, and a method for capturing images.
2. Description of the Prior art
In known digital cameras, an image is projected onto a sensor surface arranged in the digital camera using the lens element. Here, the format of the recorded image corresponds to the format of the sensor surface and generally corresponds to the rectangular small image format. It is possible neither to select nor change the image format before or after the recording. All that is possible is to subsequently edit the recorded image on a computer. On the other hand, it is advantageous that the recorded image can be viewed immediately on a display and an unsatisfactory recording, because for example the heads of photographed persons have been cut off, can be repeated immediately. In order to record images in portrait format the digital camera must be rotated 90° from the normal position.
In known large image cameras, an image is projected through the lens element onto a ground glass panel which is held by a rear standard. The format of the recorded image is determined by the format of the ground glass panel. The image area is larger in relation. As a result of the fact that in large image cameras the rear standard and the lens element can be displaced relative to one another and relative to the main housing of the large image camera, an excerpt of the image area projected by the lens element can be selected before the recording of an image. The method of the parallel displacement of the lens element with respect to the rear standard is applied, for example, if it is not possible to record an image of an object from the front as a free view is impeded by another object. In such cases, the recording can be made from a lateral standpoint and is nevertheless identical in all parts with the recording from the front. If an error happens to have occurred during parallel displacement, this cannot be eliminated after the recording as the selection of the image excerpt has to have been made beforehand.
APS cameras are understood to be cameras in which one of three image formats can be selected before an image is recorded. The selection of the image format is stored with the respective image on the film, so that when the film is developed no image information is lost. However, even in these cameras the selection of the image format, and thus the image excerpt from the image area projected by the lens element must already be made before the recording. Only after the development of the film is it possible to determine whether the correct format has been selected and whether the desired image information is contained in the recorded image.